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Abstract

Background

We evaluated growth and nutritional status of preschool children between 2 and 6 years
old from low income families from 14 daycare centers.

Methods

Cross-sectional study with 1544 children from daycare centers of Santo Andre, Brazil.
Body weight (W), height (H) and body mass index (BMI) were classified according to
the 2000 National Center for Health Statistics (CDC/NCHS). Cutoff points for nutritional
disorders: -2 z scores and 2.5 and 10 percentiles for malnutrition risk, 85 to 95
percentile for overweight and above BMI 95 percentile for obesity. Stepwise Forward
Regression method was used including age, gender, birth weight, breastfeeding duration,
age of mother at birth and period of time they attended the daycare center.

Results

Children presented mean z scores of H, W and BMI above the median of the CDC/NCHS
reference. Girls were taller and heavier than boys, while we observed similar BMI
between both genders. The z scores tended to rise with age. A Pearson Coefficient
of Correlation of 0.89 for W, 0.93 for H and 0.95 for BMI was documented indicating
positive association of age with weight, height and BMI. The frequency of children
below -2 z scores was lower than expected: 1.5% for W, 1.75% for H and 0% for BMI,
which suggests that there were no malnourished children. The other extremity of the
distribution evidenced prevalence of overweight and obesity of 16.8% and 10.8%, respectively.

Conclusion

Low income preschool children are in an advanced stage of nutritional transition with
a high prevalence of overweight.